01 October 2006

The Dangerous Idea of Non-Violence

One book to watch out for in the coming months is Mark Kurlansky's "Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea" ... Societies promote warfare and glorify violence. But there have always been a few who have refused to fight.

Governments have long regarded this minority as a danger to society and have imprisoned and abused them and encouraged their persecution. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and, most impressively, the Menonites and the Quakers - all have passages in their major teachings rejecting warfare as immoral. In this brilliant exploration of pacifism, these points of view are discussed alongside such diverse non-violence theorists as Tolstoy, Shelley, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Aldous Huxley, Erasmus, Confucius and Lao Tse to show how many modern ideas - such as a united Europe, the United Nations, and the abolition of slavery - originated in such non-violence movements.